The Great Myths of Licensure

Myth 1: Licensing of personal trainers will increase the perception of professionalism of personal trainers in the public eye.

This is simply not true. While some believe that a state license will make the personal trainer appear more credible in the public, it is important to ask yourself if you feel less than professional or credible now. In my pursuits as a certified personal trainer, I have not encountered any obstacles to gaining public acceptance or respect as a professional. In truth, the average client does not even know the real difference between a license and a certification--they are more concerned in your knowledge, skills, and abilities to provide them with the service that they seek. Seeking credibility and a professional acceptance is something that can and should be pursued through your own efforts; it is not something that will magically appear with a license. Knowing your job well and doing it with complete dedication, passion, and professionalism will suffice in producing a wonderful public image for yourself and our industry as a whole.

Myth 2: Medical and allied health care professionals would be more willing to refer their patients to personal trainers who are licensed.

Again, this is misleading. It implies that it is removing some obstacle that inhibits these professionals from giving referrals now. As a certified trainer, I have had phenomenal success in networking with, getting referrals from, and even gaining clients themselves from within the allied health care and medical professions. As certified fitness trainers, you currently hold the ability to market to, network with, and work for anyone out there, including health care professionals. There are no mechanisms or obstacles preventing anyone from achieving this level of respect and trust in the industry as it currently is. I have, and have had, clients who were M.D.s, urologists, general practitioners, attorneys, prosecutors, state officials, police officers, stock brokers, and on and on. I have often trained the spouses and children of these professionals also. If you are not achieving this now, do not think that a license will suddenly make this happen. A license would not remove any obstacle or negative image from you as a trainer. I can tell you that a single board examination or license will not raise an eyebrow on someone who has spent 8 years or more in college and graduate school to gain their credentials. It will not change your skill level or ability to gain clientele. Those achievements are up to you and are completely at your access NOW.

Myth 3: A national board must be put into place to prevent states from having 50 different requirements when they impose licensing.

First, this implies that state licensure is coming and we have to just accept it. This is NOT true. We do not have to accept it and can speak out to legislators and our own industry leaders voicing our concerns against it. One approach to the subject of licensing is to suggest that a national board standard should be used in the criteria to obtain a license. While this in itself sounds reasonable, the facts remain that: we do not currently have licensing, licensing may not be what is best for our industry, and finally, we do not have to accept it as our only option. So, to put it into perspective, this approach borders on being a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we blindly accept that licensing is a mandatory upcoming event, then of course many would incorrectly support a national board for that licensing. However, licensing is NOT at this time a mandatory upcoming event. You can still support a national board, but don’t forget that you do not have to accept licensure as your only option. Of course, without licensure, a national board can not be mandatory industry wide.

Furthermore, we know this assertion that a national board will 'save us from the 50 different laws for 50 different states' is not true because in the events of licensing that have already taken place in the medical and allied healthcare fields, different states still have some different rules--even in the health care fields. States have the autonomy to do this, and it is naive to believe that all states will be influenced in the same way. While laws may be similar, practitioners such as physicians, therapists, nurses, lawyers, etc. do experience mobility problems from state to state in currently licensed professions. You will not eliminate this problem.

Myth 4: Licensing of personal trainers weeds out the bad or poor trainers.

This is absolute nonsense. We have all met the so called “bad trainers” in the field. I personally have worked with some myself. Surprisingly, I have found that many of them hold a bachelor’s or higher in exercise science or physiology, and are certified by reputable organizations. No amount of education, certifications, or especially licensing will change this. Recently, a client informed me that her physician told her that her visceral fat was actually broken muscle tissue that can not be repaired and will never go away. Of course, most of us know that fat cells are fat cells, and muscle cells are muscle cells—one can not change into the other. This physician is licensed and board registered, yet I would say he shows some level of incompetence. If she began to develop insulin resistance, where would he look first? Let’s not forget the fact that an estimated 80,000 deaths occur each year in this country at the hands of licensed, board registered health care professionals. Licensing certainly does not eliminate this problem. Once again, the end result would not be worth the dangers and loss associated with licensure. It just simply is not true.

"A recent study by Heathgrades found that an average of 195,000hospital deaths in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002 in the U.S. were due to potentially preventable medical errors. A 2006 follow-up to the 1999 Institute of Medicine of the National Academies study found that medication errors are among the most common medical mistakes, harming at least 1.5 million people every year. Accordingto the study, 400,000 preventable drug-related injuries occur eachyear in hospitals, 800,000 in long-term care settings, and roughly530,000 among Medicare recipients in outpatient clinics."

If anything, licensing may serve to protect the bad ones! College coursework and a board exam, even a practical, do little to expose the morals or work ethic of an individual. People with less than passionate intentions can and do get through everyday. However, once they are licensed, they are enormously harder to get rid of due to the protocols surrounding suspension and revokation. You can standardize a test, but you just simply can not standardize people.

Myth 5: Licensing will help personal trainers earn more money.

Not true. In fact, it will often work in the opposite. Licensing has never led to a higher income for the practitioner in any field. In fact, it has been shown to limit consumer choice, raise consumer cost, raise practitioner costs, and ultimately limit practitioner mobility. All things we don’t suffer currently. Physicians actually are doing some work at 1/3 of the pay they previously have performed the same service for, all due to government mandates through licensing. Insurance companies are never “told” what to pay. They will tell you what they will pay for how long, and every insurance company will be different. Ask any licensed practitioner how they like working for insurance companies.

Furthermore, licensing serves to do one thing more than anything else--effectively limit competition. Limiting competition in a growing field means that while demand is going up, supply is going down! This equals one thing, higher consumer costs and higher trainer costs. Trainers would have more fees, more costs, more liability, and less competition. This is economics 101 folks. It is simply a bad idea for everyone.

Myth 6: Insurance companies will reimburse clients if states require licensing of personal trainers.

First of all, this does happen now. It IS happening, and there is no law or other mechanism that stops this from happening. A trainer, with a good reputation and good credentials, can seek reimbursement for their clients. It is a new type of transaction, and is still open for a lot of work. A colleague of mine currently has a client that is reimbursed for personal training—a deal that was set up after the client suffered a heart attack. In another instance, I received reimbursement from a state worker’s compensation agency for working with a couple of post-accident victims. Licensure will take away any bargaining power that you have now. It will put you at the mercy of state mandates and powerful, bullish insurance companies. Ask an allied healthcare practitioner or physician how they like working with insurance companies. The answer is almost always negative. Physicians often spend 8% or more of their practice's income just on the billing--that is, paying the person or office who simply does the insurance coding and submits it for payment.


In conclusion, licensure will give us nothing. The only thing it will do is take things away from us. Please, research this subject deeply. Our future is at stake.